


Sweets by Marnie

by Panda_Dear



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Statement Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21880150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panda_Dear/pseuds/Panda_Dear
Summary: Statement of Liliana Marsh, regarding a series of events at her bakery. Statement given September 15, 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Sweets by Marnie

**Author's Note:**

> I had no idea what to tag this ;-; Anyway please please please tell me what you think!!!

Statement of Liliana Marsh, regarding a series of events at her bakery. Statement given September 15, 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins. 

“Well it… its isn’t exactly easy to write down what I saw because… well, to be honest, I don’t know what I saw. I mean, I have what I think I saw, but even now I can’t… I can’t help but feel like maybe I didn’t, its all too… odd. Which, I know, is what you deal with, buts still… I came here because my roommate thought it would be a good idea, you see. She said that… she said that maybe talking to someone would make it easier to accept, and- well, I guess maybe she’s right. It started… I don’t really know. I want to say its been years, but its just that… well, when you live with something for so long, so consistently, you forget when it started… I know it was my first time working the closing shift at the bakery, so… Yeah, it wasn’t too long ago, maybe six months? Seven? I work at a small bakery, Sweet’s by Marnie. It gets good business for such a small shop, but what was odd that we never got many costumers at closing time. I mean, you think nights at a dessert shop would be packed, but we never were… I mean, I never worked closing shift, and always got off right before it was time to shut down, but at the ends of my shift I could always tell who the last costumers would be. Anyway, for some reason I got stuck working overtime. Not just overtime, but alone. Apparently, the guy who usually closes had gotten sick during the middle of his shift and left, and my other coworker had to get home to feed her dogs. I mean, sure, I was a bit peeved at the time, but like I said, we’re never busy at night so I told her alright. There wasn’t anyone until closing, so I just had to clean up. We do floors and such in the mornings, so all I had to do was wash the pans and such, double check the ovens, that kind of stuff. So I do. I wander around for a little bit, and as I’m washing the dishes, I hear the door ring. I swear I had locked the door.  
I look into the lobby and there’s this… woman. I mean, okay, she looked fine, normal, but there… I don’t know, she creeped me out. Like… It was like she didn’t have an energy. Listen, I’m not here to talk about auras and this and that, but everyone has an energy. You know, like the small movements, the things that let you know they’re… what, alive, I guess? But she didn’t have one. She’s staring straight ahead, past the case, but not at me. Just… straight at where I would usually be standing. So I go over, and as I’m opening my mouth to tell her we’re closed, she speaks. “One vanilla cupcake, please.” It felt like I froze, I couldn’t move, something about her voice, the way she spoke, it wasn’t right. It was like she… she was new to speaking, like… I don’t know, there was no emotion in her voice, no waver, no nothing! But she drew out odd syllables, it felt… wrong to me. As calmly as I could, I told her we were closed. I wish… I wish I didn’t look in her eyes. Because there was nothing in them. When I was little, my dad had a glass eye. He liked to poke it out and scare me with it. I knew what glass eyes looked like, and hers… they looked like that. But they moved, as if scanning me up and down, and then she smiled. I wanted to cry when she did, I don’t… She repeated her order. I decided I didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary with this woman, so I picked up the final cupcake from the case, placed it in one of our boxes, and handed it over to her. I guess I should say it wasn’t a vanilla cupcake, which I… I don’t know if that changed anything. If it would have been different… Or worse. But as she moved to get what I assumed was money from her bag, I told her it was free. I didn’t want to spend any more time looking at her than I needed to. Her motions were so smooth, they were... no human moves like that. She smiled again, but I didn’t think she had ever stopped. She thanked me, and exited through the doors, which, when I checked behind her, were locked.  
I’m not ashamed to say I cried after that. I sat behind the counter and sobbed, too shaken to finish the shift. I had to work closing shift after that, but I made sure I was never alone. I threatened to quit if I had to do it alone again. Eventually, I… I thought she was gone. I thought that was it, no more of her. So I was comfortable enough to work alone again… And she came back. Just like last time. It was the same… the exact same interaction. I mean, think of all the times you’ve gone and asked for your morning coffee. Sure, your order is the same, the conversation might even be the same, but… but not every little detail. Not… That’s not right. But-But that wasn’t the only thing that unsettled me about it. She… she seemed to have grown shorter, if that’s possible. Now, maybe I could have been wrong about that, but… But her hair was lighter as well. It was nearing a dirty blond now, and it was shorter too. It… it was almost like it just shifted… It became a routine, of me refusing to work alone until I thought foolishly she was gone. It happened two more times, which, I know, makes me an idiot. Who lets that happen four times? But the last time, I… That’s why I came to you guys. It wasn’t the same. I mean, it was the same… woman, but the… She grabbed my arm. And she felt cold. Like-Like have you ever sat down on concrete? Just that coldness, the unnatural chill… Not like someone’s cold hands… She told me that she knew I had been avoiding her, and that it hurt her feelings. I-I didn’t know how to respond, how do you respond to that? I didn’t know what to do, if I should scream, cry, hit her, run… I was frozen. I don’t know for how long I stood there, letting her grip my arm so tight it began to feel numb, though that may have been from the cold. I think I may have been crying, but her expression never changed from that damned smile, that grin that- Its like every time I remember that smile, I want to vomit. Finally, finally, she let go of my arm, and she just… left. I stood there, frozen in… fear, shock? Both? Until I finally willed myself to move to the same doors she walked through and leave. I quit, and I would like to say that was the last I saw of her, but I… god, I… I lived close to the bakery, maybe only a few blocks, which caused me plenty of paranoia during these events. I… I would look out my window and I would see her, walking away from the bakery. But… but that was fine, that was fine, she wasn’t tormenting me anymore, she was someone else’s problem, probably harassing the poor fool who took my place, but she… Two nights ago, I looked out the window to see her staring right back up at me. Staring at me, with my eyes, with my face. She. Was. Me. And in her hand…was a half-eaten, plain vanilla cupcake.” 

Statement ends. It should be noted that after contacting Miss Marsh’s coworkers, they all confirmed what they could about the statement, namely that she had been acting paranoid and that she had quit in the middle of one of her closing shifts. It is also important to say that the security footage are incomplete, jumping from the moment Marsh states she heard the door to her sitting behind the counter in tears. A week after she gave the statement, Marsh was hospitalized after falling from her fourth story window. Hospital records show she was in a comatose state for approximately three months before awakening. Friends and family stated she was unlike her previous self, though they account this to the trauma. Miss Marsh has declined a follow up interview, though we did manage to get in contact with Marnie’s Bakery, of who the workers state she has been frequenting the establishment near closing every weekend wit the same request for a plain vanilla cupcake.


End file.
